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Strive Masiyiwa, a member of the Africa Progress Panel, is the founder and chairman of Econet Wireless. He is also the co-Chair of GROW Africa, and Chairman of the Board of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa.

One of the richest targets for enemies of Western nations is their hyper-vulnerable transmission corridors where hundreds of thousands of miles of power lines and pylons criss-cross every region and state on the continent.

During the Cold War, national grids were prime targets for foreign fighter-bomber jets and for small (non-nuclear) cruise missiles.

A few well-placed shots and a country could be in crisis for months, and during the cold winter months in northern states, or in the middle of the hot summer in southern states -- could cause a healthcare crisis for millions of people.

Today, the greatest threat to national grids comes from hackers, who can do far more damage to a national grid than a fleet of fighter-bomber jets.

Suffice it to say that national grids, and in particular, transmission corridors, are prime targets for the enemies of any nation, and they are incredibly vulnerable.

The time of the 'national grid' is well past, but we are slow to make the changeover.

Each city -- whether in the developing world, or in developed nations -- should have its own mini-grid, its own tailored renewable energy+efficiency+natural gas generation mix (you need natural gas to cover intermittency of renewables like at night when the Sun doesn't shine and during the times that the wind doesn't blow) or you need a very large battery system, such as TESLA is installing in South Australia:

It's not only developing nations that need to start building mini-grids and micro-grids, but our ultra-vulnerable national grids in developed nations are huge and largely unprotected targets, due to the vast swathes of land the power lines and pylons cover.

Anyone who has worked in the developing world knows immediately the huge problems with this idea. First, wind needs constant management. I think the author thinks you just put up a turbine and get electricity. That is absurd. Solar also needs management and maintenance. When we built water systems in villages we learned we also need to build a supply of parts and maintenance. This is why we build GRID. It is just that simple. Also who is going to manage the SCADA system. Will be that done centrally. I could go on and on. Great idea but by the time you put it all together you might as well as built a hybrid system of mini-grid controlled by a central authority with a grid as base power. The real problem is not transmission. So build the lines. It is building large enough base power. In this way MINI works maybe